BBC Two has announced a slate of new sitcoms as part of the Landmark Sitcom Season, which celebrates the legacy of British comedy.
The season, which begins in September, marks 60 years since Galton and Simpson’s Hancock’s Half Hour started on BBC Television.
Our Ex Wife, We The Jury and The Coopers Vs The Rest will air alongside the previously announced new sitcoms - Home From Home and Motherland.
Our Ex Wife stars Robert Webb (Peep Show) as divorced Dad Jack in a hate-filled comedy about the tensions between him, his unhinged ex-wife, Hillary, and his fiancé, Sara (Doctor Foster’s Victoria Hamilton). Jack wants nothing to do with Hillary, while Sara wants to form a friendship with her for the sake of the kids.
We The Jury follows what the BBC call ‘a mismatched collection of enthusiastic fools, inconsiderate bullies and self-obsessed weirdos’, who are continually distracted from the case. It is directed by Ben Taylor (Catastrophe) and produced by Josh Cole (Crashing).
In The Coopers Vs The Rest, Tanya Franks (Pulling) and Paterson Joseph (Peep Show, Green Wing) head up the Cooper family, completed by three adopted children. Expect to see the family members getting into all sorts of silly situations, such as when Mum Tess crashes an 8-year-old’s birthday party in the hope of improving son Charlie’s popularity.
“These three brand new sitcom specials are the fresh out of the oven part of our landmark sitcom season,” said Shane Allen, Controller of Comedy Commissioning at the BBC.
“They are sharply written and terrifically-cast treats with a very contemporary heart to them, except in the case of We The Jury, which is just infectiously and joyfully daft.”
Landmark Sitcom Season, which stretches across BBC One, Two and Four, also brings revivals of much-loved classics to our screens, including Are You Being Served? Porridge and Up Pompeii.
BBC Four, will show recreations of three classic sitcom episodes that have been lost from the BBC archive, but for which the scripts still exist.
The ‘Lost Sitcoms’ are Hancock’s Half Hour: ‘The New Neighbour’, Steptoe and Son: ‘A Winter’s Tale’, and Till Death Us Do Part: ‘A Woman’s Place is in the Home’.
Find out which other TV shows members of the public want to resurrect:
